Tips to Deal with Difficult Clients
When you’re a real estate agent, it’s not uncommon to deal with difficult clients, but some might be more so than others.
Some clients may be very particular about what they want, while others might not seem to trust your advice. There can also be those clients who seem to want all of your time and attention, making you unsure if you’re ever going to close a deal.
The following are tips and things to know if you’re a real estate agent when it comes to difficult clients.
Pre-Screen Your Clients
One of the best things you can do to avoid having to deal with clients that are overly difficult at all is to pre-screen them and don’t take them on. You should aim to meet in person with every potential client before you work with them.
It’ll help you and the client see if you’re a good fit.
You can also provide information about how you work and what you need from them in order to work effectively. It may that when you disclose things about your personal style, some clients don’t feel like it’s the right fit on their end.
Educate Your Clients Early-On
Sometimes clients are difficult not because they’re demanding but because they’re overwhelmed. This is especially true with first-time homebuyers. You can help them and yourself by preparing for this and educating your clients early on about what they can expect.
Work to help them stay organized and prepare them for each step of the process proactively well before it actually happens.
You might even want to create to-do lists for them and outlines of how the process will go. By alleviating some of their uncertainty and anxiety, you’re probably going to find would-be challenging clients are much easier to deal with.
Be Empathetic
There are very few clients who are actually difficult just for the sake of being a problem. Instead, as was mentioned above, they’re dealing with a lot of stress, and they’re probably feeling pretty overwhelmed.
Having empathy can help you better connect with your clients, smooth out possible bumps in the road and create a more productive experience for all of you.
Have Clear Communication Expectations
There are some clients who are hard to deal with because they want to be in constant communication with you, and they demand a lot of your attention.
Let new clients know upfront how you operate as far as what your hours for communication are, when they can expect you to respond, and how you’ll respond. You should be honest about your schedule and managing communication expectations can help reduce a lot of issues.
If you have a client who does seem to want to stay in nearly constant communication, one strategy you can use aside from managing expectations is to respond to their messages in a timely way, just letting them know you got it, and you’ll get back with them more in-depth when you’re able to.
Stay Calm
Buying or selling a home can be highly emotional for some people. There may be emotional roller coasters, so along with being empathetic and working to see things from the perspective of your client, you should also stay calm. Don’t let yourself get swept up in your own strong emotions or react in a way that’s going to heighten what they’re already feeling.
At the end of the day, a good real estate agent is there to serve the needs of their clients and help them through each step of the process, but you still have to set boundaries. A lot of setting boundaries occurs from the first meeting you have with a prospective client. The more you can be transparent early on, the fewer problems you’re likely to run into later.